Photo by Becca A. Lewis
I’ve been reading Tristan Taormino’s “Opening Up” out loud with my partner over the past couple days. We’ve joined a mono/poly group on Fetlife (that refers to people who are monogamous and in relationship with people who are non-monogamous or polyamorous). We’re also getting ready for a nine month tour where the two of us will be the only people around one another pretty much 24/7 during that time…
In a couple weeks we’ll be going to my partner’s first ever sex party. I wonder what it will be like? I hope when we’re on the road next we get to check out some of the kinky communities and dungeon spaces around the United States; I think we’d both like that.
Last night I dreamed that we needed to find a Dominant who could dominate both of us. When I woke up in the middle of the night I couldn’t figure out exactly why, whether it was so that my partner could submit to someone himself and understand Domination better through those experiences, whether it was to help him find greater confidence through co-topping me with this other partner, or maybe it was so he could experience some form of non-monogamy himself…
I’ve been poly-identified for much of my adult life, though I would not say I’ve navigated non-monogamous relationships successfully in that time, except for when I’ve been practicing solo-polyamory. My five year marriage broke up when we opened it to accommodate my wife’s new girl-crush (it turns out she’s a serial-monogamist, and I really am poly, not just curious). It was sad. It worked for a little while at least; I loved processing all the things that opening your relationship makes you need to process with one another. During that time I felt like a better wife.
I am processing in my sleep more than I’m sleeping lately, and I wake up exhausted, emotional, and needing space.
It’s amazing to have a partner who looks at me and says, “I know who you are; I know it’s different than me and I accept you. Now lets do the hard stuff.” Sometimes we can’t. Sometimes I realize I’ve never been happier. His smell insists on reminding me of that.
I find myself thinking that no matter how well I love someone else, I still have lifetimes of layers to work through to love myself cleanly enough to make anything work out in the end. I am too hard on me. I am too hard on others. I don’t feel safe when I get what I want from my partners; sexually I’m a mess. I feel sick, scared, and wrong a lot. I get confused about what things mean and how we’re supposed to be. Love feels like being lost in a forest – for a moment it’s sexy, enchanting, and a you don’t mind it at all because everything’s so beautiful and strange, but after that passes and it starts to get late, you realize how scared you are and how much you really just want to curl up and cry while frantically trying to find a way out… I don’t know if I’ll ever calm down enough to build a home here, but I imagine that’s what you’re supposed to do.
I think almost everything I’ve learned in my lifetime about being in love is wrong.
I am constructing my own compass though. Breathing through the panic. Finding earth under foot. This is me trying.
To Breath and Being,
~ Karin
If you like my blog, please check out my Patreon Page and consider supporting me, or just click here: Support the Artist
~Thank you.
###
Be an ABCs contributor: Do you have a story or perspective to share about kink or would you like to promote a kinky event? Email Karin directly at: Karin @ ABCsOfKink . com or fill out the as-anonymous-as-you-want-it-to-be feedback form below and you could see your writing published as a part of Wednesday’s “Perspectives on Kink: Conversations with the Community” blog on this site. Don’t know what to write about? Consider answering some of the Survey Questions I posted recently. Happy writing, and thanks!